Flawed evidence of social mobility

According to the government's spin, recent research demonstrates that social mobility is increasing (Social mobility on the rise at last, says report, November 3). The research did nothing of the kind, and indeed the researchers were quite careful about the implications of their findings. What they found was a weakening of the strength of the relationship between parental income and GCSE achievement at age 16 for children born in 1990, as compared with a cohort born in 1970.

The problem is that we cannot infer that this shift will have any implications for social mobility at all. Social mobility in this case is between generations. Traditional sociological interest has focused on movements in relation to occupation. What is needed is a focus on the relationship between parental income and assets and the income and assets of their children.

The most important shift over the last 40 years has been the massive decline in the proportion of the population engaged in skilled manual work. At the same time, the relative earnings of many occupations which require higher levels of education have declined, to the extent that occupations which could be accessed with five O-levels in the 1960s now require a degree.

The net effect is that it is increasingly difficult for children from middle-income households to achieve the relative, and even absolute, living standard of their parents. The harsh reality is that in the bad old days of the 11-plus there was more social mobility than there is now. The UK is, by western European standards, an unequal society and all the signs are that it is likely to remain so. David ByrneProfessor of sociology and social policy, Durham University